Prof Knoop, an associate professor at the University of Aarhus in Denmark and highly regarded for his expertise in positive education, advocates for a different way of going about reporting the news, namely constructive journalism.
During his recent visit to South Africa, Prof Knoop explained that there is a peculiar correlation between the nature of cognition and the culture of news media. Cognition makes us biased towards confirmation, availability and negativity. Thus, a quick power grab of the “popular mind” is possible by the simple means of presenting sensational dangers that confirm people’s worries. This is even the case where a particular message is entirely untrue.
Good news = boring
Positive or good news is perceived to be boring. In society today, we are seeing an excess of attention given to “what goes wrong”. While it is important to report on such (bad) news, there are also many good news events to report on every day. The good news, however, seems to remain “underreported”.
Prof Knoop argues that this kind of reporting can mislead people and therefore puts the profession in the dangerous position of losing the trust of the public. Trust brings accountability to democracy, and losing trust is the last thing that any journalist would want.
He compares a journalist to a teacher: a teacher will lose the trust of his/her learners if they can see that they are being taught a biased view of the world. Worse even, they will experience a feeling of being small and unable to bring about change. This is yet another stumbling block to democracy.
Prof Knoop says that the world is improving, albeit slowly. For instance, mother and child mortality is decreasing and GDP increasing in most parts of the world. However, good news such as this is not reported on. According to Prof Knoop, constructive journalism aims to change misleading reporting and to set the record straight, in a way that overlaps with some other approaches to journalism.
The first approach is solution journalism, which reports on bad news, but also investigates ways to solve the problems that are being reporting on. Reporting on what can be done and how the average citizen can contribute, leaves the reader encouraged and engaged.
Another is positive news which reports on successes or on different ways of doing something that has worked in the past.
Prof Hans-Henrik Knoop
The link between constructive journalism and positive psychology
Constructive journalism and positive psychology can be seen as two aspects of a broader trend in global society: a shift in focus from solving problems to actually preventing them. Positive psychology is all about understanding how to prevent psychological disaster instead of treating the aftermath. Where psychology is about treating and healing, positive psychology is about understanding how to live a better life. Constructive journalism may therefore, according to Prof Knoop, be seen as running parallel to what is going on in journalism.
We all have cognitive biases and news that confirms those biases creates a divided society. An extreme example is currently being seen in the USA, where the spreading of fake news is in the spotlight. We experience an availability bias, which means we overestimate the danger and the vastness of negative things such as terrorism. Prof Knoop says it is human nature to focus on the negative; that it is an ancient survival technique to suspect the worst as it will increase our ability to deal with it.
“We are not creating a stronger society by scaring people,” says Prof Knoop. “I appeal politicians and journalists to take particular note of the psychological impact that their day to day statements may have on the creation of a future society in which people can really thrive. “
